Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is one thing which the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate said in her contribution in this debate which I agree with, and that is that the argument should be based on evidence and the facts. The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate refers to the 'gotcha question'. What is the gotcha question? The question is: what will your policy cost? That's the gotcha question. It's not an unreasonable question. That's the question you could not answer for people in my home state of Queensland. That is the question you could not answer for workers at the Boyne Island smelter. That is the question you couldn't answer for people working in the beef industry in western Queensland. That is your gotcha question, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. How much will it cost? How will you achieve it? What does it mean for the voters of Queensland? What will it do to electricity prices? These are your gotcha questions. You still can't answer them. All you have done is kick the can 20 years down the road, from 2030 to 2050, when none of us will be in this place, when no-one here will be accountable for the decisions and policy direction you have taken. You call these gotcha questions. These aren't gotcha questions; these are questions which working families in Queensland have a right to have answers to. They have a right to know what it means for their communities, what it means for their jobs and what it means for the people of Queensland. They have a right to answers to those questions.

In the last federal election, the Labor Party achieved its worst result in my home state of Queensland since the 1940s. They returned one senator out of six.